PREPS PLUS.

St. Ignatius Girls Keep Having Fun, Roll To 20-1

Twenty-one games, 20 of them victories. Is this a dream, or is this the real thing? St. Ignatius coach Tom McKenna doesn't care and doesn't want to know.

All he wants is to have some fun.

"I've been coaching since 1968," said McKenna, "and I can't remember any of my teams ever being 20-1. I'm not sure we're as good as that sounds, but it sure is a lot of fun being 20-1."

McKenna's squad had some more fun Saturday night at home, pounding No. 10 Resurrection 57-38 to all but nail down the No. 1 seed in the Girls Catholic Athletic Conference playoffs.

The No. 4 Wolfpack did it by displaying the versatility that has become its trademark.

Kate Edmonds was the long-distance operator, hitting a trio of three-pointers in the first half to help Ignatius to a 24-21 lead. In the second half, the Wolfpack hounded the Bandits with its inside strength-6-foot-1-inch sophomore center Maureen McManaman and 6-0 senior forward Katie O'Connor.

"I was definitely hustling more the second half," said McManaman. "Our outside attack wasn't happening as much as we'd like, so we started banging the inside."

After going scoreless the first 16 minutes, McManaman moved people out of the way to get eight of her 12 points, and O'Connor added six of her 10 as Ignatius opened the third quarter with a 14-3 run to lead 38-24.

"It's a cliche that the first 3 minutes of the third quarter are crucial," said McKenna, "but in this game they really were. No way we're 19 points better than this team, but I think we hurt them with our versatility. We just have great balance this year."

Senior guard Lauren Brougham led the way with 13 points, McManaman had 12, O'Connor 10 and Edmonds and Maureen Faut nine each.

Julie Johnson and Amy Anderson scored eight apiece for the Bandits (16-4), but rusty senior forward Melissa Collins, in her first action since spraining an ankle a week ago against Immaculate Heart of Mary, was held to seven.

"At halftime, Coach was like, `You guys have got to pick up the intensity. Play this like it's your last game,' " said Brougham. " `Keep screening and rescreening.' We kicked it up. This will probably give us the No. 1 seed, and that's what we wanted. We wanted to show them we deserved respect on our home floor."

Said Resurrection coach Frank Zepf: "We knew it wasn't going to be easy coming in here. It was our idea to take away their inside game, and it worked for a half, but we didn't shoot well and our forwards were banged up, and things went from bad to worse.

"It was too easy for them to get inside. They just weren't going to let us come in here and beat them."

McKenna said he would happily accept the No. 1 playoff seed.

"We went through the league undefeated, and this is the first time in my memory anyone has done that," he said. "I like being No. 1 because I don't think this team will cave in from the pressure. We've handled it so far."